The svnserve program is a lightweight, standalone server for subversion. To run svnserve on our servers, you need a Standard, Advanced (VPS) or Corporate (VPS) package. The daemon must be configured to listen on your assigned v-host IP address.

Creating the repositories

If you have not created any subversion repositories yet, you can create one with svnadmin(1):

$ svnadmin create ~/my-repository

Tweaking svnserve.conf

Open up and edit the svnserve.conf file located in the $HOME/my-repo/conf/ directory.

Open up and edit the password-db file (ie. $HOME/my-repo/conf/passwd). A sample entry might look like this:

[users]
user1 = password1
user2 = password2

Starting up the server

Run the server by invoking svnserve with the -d switch (daemon mode) and --listen-host 96.47.74.x (substituting 96.47.74.x for your v-host IP address).

$ svnserve -d --listen-host 96.47.74.x -r $HOME/my-repo

To ensure that your svnserve gets started whenever the server is booted, you must add a @reboot line to your crontab(5). Use the crontab -e command to bring up your crontab in your favorite text editor and add the following line:

@reboot svnserve -d --listen-host 96.47.74.x -r $HOME/my-repo

Testing the server

To test the server's functionality, you can create a working copy of your repository using your shell. The checkout command will create a working copy of the repository:

If needed, you can contact us to request specific limits on the number of concurrent connections or connection rates to your svnserve. It is also possible to restrict svnserve connections to a set of static IP addresses.